Political destruction in the neoliberal era

Over on the series of tubes that emanates from the Twitter hive mind, Ned Resnikoff flagged this post from Will Davies (no relation, I assume, to brothers Ray and Dave) that stands for now as the smartest analysis I’ve seen about the ongoing riots in London.

Davies notes how lacking the explanations for the chaos from both the left and the right have been — although the right thus far hasn’t offered explanation so much as condemnation (and sometimes a profoundly ill-advised combination of the two) — as if neither side could really fathom the events and rather than admit as much, reverted to repeating platitudinous talking points with somewhat less than total conviction. I’ve been struck, too, by how difficult it has been thus far to place these riots in a conventional or even comprehensible political context, and I think Davies is right when he says:

I’m also troubled by how weak the sociological, socialist and structuralist analyses of these events have been over the last few days. Attempts by Ken Livingstone and Polly Toynbee to peg these events to the Coalition’s economic policies look very flimsy, seeing as the cuts are only just beginning. Even if 15% of the public sector had been axed in May of last year, I think it would be crudely economistic to assume that people might therefore divert their energies from community drama projects to smashing up JD Sports within the space of 15 months. And while global capitalism may be in meltdown, this is not (yet) represented in the unemployment figures, which are not as bleak as many have expected.

The answer, usually, would be to simply listen to the people, and pay attention to whatever explanations they give for themselves. But as Davies notes, in this instance, at least, that doesn’t really clarify things; it may muddy them up even further:

The dilemma for the Left, and for sociologists, is the following: whether or not to trust people’s own understanding of what they’re doing. And if a young looter says nothing about politics or inequality, and displays no class consciousness, to what extent can a culturally sensitive democratic socialist disagree with them? For sure, the Old Left would have no problem re-framing the behaviour of an egomaniac teenager burning down his neighbour’s shop in terms of class. That’s what crude Marxist ‘critical realism’ meant. But the New Left, along with the ‘cultural turn’ in sociology, was meant to be slightly more capable of listening.

Do these anecdotes and qualitative impressions mean that it isn’t about class, that it isn’t about capitalism? Not quite. But Marxists need to remember the Hegelian distinction between ‘in itself’ and ‘for itself’. In themselves, these riots may indeed be about inequality: the concentration of wealth and power may simply have become too unwieldy, regardless of what the rioters think is going on. But for themselves, they are about power, hedonism, consumption and sovereignty of the ego. Anyone who disagrees with that is simply not crediting the participants with being able to make sense of what they’re doing. And if there’s one thing likely to incite even more rioting, it’s treating the participants as lacking independence of thought. In many ways, blame is what they each individually deserve, because recognition of their own individual agency is what they most desire.

Sociologists and socialists are wary of blaming individuals, for events that they are not entirely in control of, and structures that they didn’t design. But surely a nuanced understanding of contemporary individualism recognises that it is no less real for having been politically constructed. Political and economic ideas and concepts can become more truthful over time, if there is enough power behind them. The neoliberal vision of the individual ego, choosing, desiring and consuming, independent of social norms or institutions, has grown more plausible over the past thirty years. Once it becomes adopted by people to understand and criticise their own lives and actions, then it attains a type of ‘performative’ and interpretive reality that class may have done in the past, but no longer does.

As an explanation, then, Davies turns to David Harvey — specifically the sections of his ABrief History of Neoliberalism that focus on the social impacts of the full embrace of neoliberalism, which Harvey posits are largely evidenced through a rising anomie among younger citizens:

As David Harvey argues in A Brief History of Neoliberalism, combine neo-classical economics with the 1960s rhetoric of emancipation, and you have a heady ideological cocktail, that draws people into conceiving of themselves as autonomous sovereign selves. Ask today’s rioter what he is doing, and he will reply using the language of self, pleasure, economic freedom and individual recognition. This borders on the concerns of the Left, when it enters into identity politics, but for the most part it is entirely neoliberal. He didn’t write this script, but he did choose to read from it.

At this early juncture, I’m inclined to adopt this framework of explanation originally proposed by Harvey, because it makes more sense to me than anything else. I’d imagine that, yes, people are angry about austerity measures; and that, yes, chronic joblessness is fueling that anger, alongside highly volatile relationships with the police. In its way, seeing the rioters through this prism allows denizens of both the left and the right to find at least a little something with which to agree. A more hardline leftist can look at how rampant consumer capitalism has creatively destroyed former systems of community and reciprocity. People on the right can say that this is evidence of a generation of people completely unmoored from traditional societal norms that keep our animal natures in-check.

Indeed, so much of this rioting has appeared nearly apolitical — at least after the first moments — that it may make more sense to view it simply as a case of collective ids gone wild. It’s as if many of these people have long viewed themselves as neglected or denied awesome figures of true Greatness. And now is their chance, with the cracks in the facade of order just wide enough to drive a bat or brick through, to seize everything that’s rightfully theirs by the simple virtue of their being.

Share this:

Elias Isquith is a freelance journalist and blogger. He considers Bob Dylan and Walter Sobchak to be the two great Jewish thinkers of our time; he thinks Kafka was half-right when he said there was hope, "but not for us"; and he can be reached through the twitter via @eliasisquith or via email. The opinions he expresses on the blog and throughout the interwebs are exclusively his own.

Related Post Roulette

27 Responses

Harvey and Davies confuse individual rights and autonomy with selfishness and nihilism. The two are quite different. And unless someone can explain how the state ought to take away individual autonomy and civil rights in order to curb seflishness and nihilism, I think this sort of explanation is just so much conservatism draped in the rhetoric of the left.Report

Well I think it’s pretty common for progressives and paleoconservatives alike to blame consumerism for all sorts of ills. Really, though, it’s just aesthetic. For me to buy the anti-consumerist, anti-individualist argument I need an argument that shows that the *state* should intervene in some way to alter these new norms, to make us less individualistic or not want to buy things. I think they can’t, because I think it all boils down to aesthetic concerns. How dare the proles care so much about buying things! Meanwhile the haughty intellectuals buy the things they like without too much complaining. They exist as individuals and think of themselves as such. It is the *other* individuals that have lost their sense of community.Report

That being said, perhaps there is some truth to this in a sense. Perhaps we are ill-equipped to truly understand how to be autonomous individuals. Perhaps the cradle-to-grave style welfare state the Brits have clashes with healthy individualism and creates a stilted, confused version of it. Hard to say.Report

Perhaps the cradle-to-grave style welfare state the Brits have clashes with healthy individualism and creates a stilted, confused version of it. Hard to say.

Perhaps the antioxidant levels in English tea are to blame. Hard to say.

This is not a case of correlation being treated as causation, but of no correlation at all. This is little more than idle speculation, based on nothing, and getting nowhere. That’s why I think it’s funny when it’s said in Bob Cheeks language (see the previous thread). Again, I feel the need to post this:

The point I’m trying to make is that there is a point when you can have too much welfare, when it begins to actually harm its recipients. The British state is quite a lot “bigger” and more pervasive than ours, or than really any other government in the Anglosphere.Report

I’m with Chris on this. I think it’s perhaps an open question whether there can be too much welfare, but the claim that there in fact is – or in fact might be – is an empirical matter that can’t be resolved without making a heavy investment in data and evidence. Platitudes and moral first principles would seem as relevant

I think the suggestion you’re getting at is that too much nanny-statism engenders a feeling of hopelessness and frustration by diluting an urgent sense of duty to oneselfReport

I just struggle with this line of argument considering that most of Europe looks at the state in the UK as significantly smaller and less generous than anywhere else. In this regard, the Anglo countries are the clear outliers among Western nations.Report

The point I’m trying to make is that there is a point when you can have too much welfare, when it begins to actually harm its recipients.

I’m with Chris on this. I think it’s an open question, and perhaps an interesting one, whether there can be too much welfare. But the claim that there in fact is – or in fact might be – a point at which public welfare actually hurts the recipients is an empirical matter that can’t be resolved without making a heavy investment in data and evidence. Reducing the issue to ideologically motivated moral and political first principles doesn’t seem very useful in arriving at an answer (not that you’ve done that here).

I think the suggestion you’re getting at here is that too much nanny-statism engenders a feeling of hopelessness and frustration precisely because it curtails the growth and expression of personal economic responsibility. Part of the problem with this line of thought – and why it’s an empirical matter rather than a priori – is that the welfare state is a response to structural issues endemic to capitalistic (and other) economies: poverty and lack of access to employment opportunities. Additional ‘nanny state’ programs like universal health care are rationally justified in any event, or justified by different types of arguments.

So I can see the connection you’re driving at, but personally I think it’s a mistake to arrive at an answer based on ideological first principles rather than evidence grounded in real data.Report

Here’s a good measurement for “too much (of the wrong kind of) welfare” that I use:

Let’s say we switched from whatever we’re doing now to direct cash payment every two weeks.

Would the money be used for mostly rent, mostly food, with a little left over for entertainment?

If the answer is somewhere on the continuum between “wait, you asked that question seriously?” and “no, the money was spent well before we got to the beginning of the next period” for more than, oh, 15% of the recipients, then I’d say that we are giving too much of the wrong kind of welfare.Report

The only thing I’d take issue with is E.D.’s idea that the individualism of neoliberalism is natural/healthy, thus putting the onus on the welfare state.

The degree to which the west now fetishizes the individual is not really “natural,” if we understand natural as historically consistent. I’m skeptical there’s such a thing as natural when it comes to our self-ID and am inclined to see us always as defined by our time but…yeah.Report

Except this sort of behavior is not new, not by any stretch of the imagination. Sure, going after big screen TVs is new, but only because when people have done this in centuries, and millenia past, there weren’t big screen TVs! This is human behavior. Sure, we need to come up with some idea of what triggered this particular instance, and I suspect we will, though it will take time, and all of this blathering about left, right, or tea is just that, blathering.Report

Isn’t this kind of apolitical, voracious destruction the kind of thing the West hasn’t seen in quite some time? I.e., wasn’t the last time this kind of thing would happen during eras of, by today’s standards, enormous inequality?

These aren’t rhetorical questions, by the way. I’m probably not thinking of similar instances in the more-recent future. As I said in the OP, I find it difficult to understand what’s happening in political terms of any kind — either as an explanation for their actions or as an explanation for why it’s happening, regardless of what the perpetrators think.Report

This reminds me of the riots you see after some big sports games more than anything. Just rage at nothing. At boredom. At lack of purpose or meaning. But purpose and meaning have always been missing, to some degree, or tricky to find.Report

You know, I never even think of it in these terms, but I’m positive it’s likely far more common than I’d imagine.

I’m not a fan of consumerism; but I cop to being just as much a member of 21st century America as anyone else. My vice is apple products.

From what I’ve read of Harvey, he’s not really moralistic or polemical enough that he ever puts forth arguments with these kind of paternalistic undertones; in general he attempts to simply diagnose as best he can. At least from what I’ve read thus far.

And I think that’d be the better way to see their argument; it’s certainly the only way I’d want to accept it. It’s a balancing act, however, because the line between pointing out how our media universe is built on reinforcing our own self-perceptions as being invaluable and entitled to anything, and saying, in essence, “kids these days!!!” is a thin one.Report

It’s also probably at least partly true, but so are the conservative arguments about the overbearing welfare state in the UK (which looms much larger there than here or in other Anglosphere countries). There’s truth to all of it, and maybe it’s all tied together somehow, but that’s hard to parse out.Report

This is misleading, as is the whole critique of “neoliberalism”. Capitalism was perverted long ago, so that one can’t speak of capitalism proper. A better depiction is that statism, in all its forms, government intervention in the economy, is in meltdown. By associating the international economic problems with capitalism, this perpetuates the ideas which may be at the root of craziness we see in London. By focusing on the fundamental problems, one of which is failed government intervention and failed welfare state, we can begin finding fundamental solutions, but as long as young people’s minds are pumped with anti-rich, anti-capitalist rhetoric, they will eventually believe that if only we could redistribute all the wealth and prevent wealth accumulation our problems will be solved. Looting is just a form of direct redistribution — they’re cutting out the middle man who’s skimming too much to their liking.Report

Shortly after Adam and Eve’s fall from grace? Pure capitalism has never existed. And every attempt to let markets and market-participants interact without regulation and heavy state involvement has led to major problems. For capitalism.

That you think the state interference is the cause of the problem reverses the arrow of causality here. Capitalism needs the state more than the state needs capitalism.Report

There’s a riot in Britain where no one seems to know the reasons for and the purer-than-thou leftist brigade is blaming it on neoliberalism? Seriously? This is what you consider the most important battle now, Elias? Not battling the Tea Party or the Republicans who seem determined to drive the country over the cliff, but bashing and blaming neoliberals at every turn. Newsflash, Matt Yglesias et al aren’t that important in the great scheme of things. They may think they are (and people like you and Freddie assigning to them nefarious power and influence is probably helping them gaining that impression), but they are nothing. I would respect you more if not every post is some variation of the evils of neoliberalism. It says something about a person when all they are concerned about is infighting, and not interested at all in battling with the real enemy.Report

I dunno. I think I’ll mangle Freud and say that sometimes a bored, spoiled, drunk kid is nothing more than a bored, spoiled, drunk kid. A well-fed white man smashing a shopfront window and helping himself to a new cell phone is not an abstract response to politicial inequities.Report

Religious Institutions. Religious institutions may resume services subject to the following conditions, which apply to churches, synagogues, temples, mosques, interfaith centers, and any other space, including rented space, where religious or faith gatherings are held: 1. Indoor religious gatherings are limited to no more than ten people. 2. Outdoor religious gatherings of up to 250 people are allowed. Outdoor services may be held on any outdoor space the religious institution owns, rents, or reserves for use. 3. All attendees at either indoor or outdoor services must maintain appropriate social distancing of six feet and wear face masks or facial coverings at all times. 4. There shall be no consumption of food or beverage of any kind before, during, or after religious services, including food or beverage that would typically be consumed as part of a religious service. 5. Collection plates or receptacles may not be passed to or between attendees. 6. There should be no hand shaking or other physical contact between congregants before, during, or after religious services. Attendees shall not congregate with other attendees on the property where religious services are being held before or after services. Family members or those who live in the same household or who attend a service together in the same vehicle may be closer than six feet apart but shall remain at least six feet apart from any other persons or family groups. 7. Singing is permitted, but not recommended. If singing takes place, only the choir or religious leaders may sing. Any person singing without a mask or facial covering must maintain a 12-foot distance from other persons, including religious leaders, other singers, or the congregation. 8. Outdoor or drive-in services may be conducted with attendees remaining in their vehicles. If utilizing parking lots for either holding for religious services or for parking for services held elsewhere on the premises, religious institutions shall ensure there is adequate parking available. 9. All high touch areas, (including benches, chairs, etc.) must be cleaned and decontaminated after every service. 10. Religious institutions are encouraged to follow the guidelines issued by Governor Hogan.

“There shall be no consumption of food or beverage of any kind before, during, or after religious services, including food or beverage that would typically be consumed as part of a religious service,” the order says in a section delineating norms and restrictions on religious services.

The consumption of the consecrated species at Mass, at least by the celebrant, is an integral part of the Eucharistic rite. Rules prohibiting even the celebrating priest from receiving the Eucharist would ban the licit celebration of Mass by any priest.

CNA asked the Howard County public affairs office to comment on how the rule aligns with First Amendment religious freedom and free exercise rights.

Howard County spokesman Scott Peterson told CNA in a statement that "Howard County has not fully implemented Phase 1 of Reopening. We continue to do an incremental rollout based on health and safety guidelines, analysis of data and metrics specific to Howard County and in consultation with our local Health Department."

"With this said," Peterson added, "we continue to get stakeholder feedback in order to fully reopen to Phase 1."

The executive order also limits attendance at indoor worship spaces to 10 people or fewer, limits outdoor services to 250 socially-distanced people wearing masks, forbids the passing of collection plates, and bans handshakes and physical contact between worshippers.

In contrast to the 10-person limit for churches, establishments listed in the order that do not host religious services are permitted to operate at 50% capacity.

In the early days of the Coronavirus epidemic, there were hopes that the disease could be treated with a compound called hydroxychloroquine (HCQ). HCQ is a long-established inexpensive medicine that is widely used to treat malaria. It also has uses for treating rheumatoid arthritis and lupus. There had been some indications that HCQ could treat SARS virus infections by attacking the spike proteins that coronaviruses use to latch onto cells and inject their genetic material. Initial small-scale studies of the drug on COVID-19 patients indicated some positive effect (in combination with the antibiotic azithromycin). President Trump, in March, promoted HCQ as a game-changer and is apparently taking it as a prophylaxis after potentially being exposed by White House staff.

Initial claims of the efficacy of this therapy were a perfect illustration of why we base decisions on scientific studies and not anecdotes. By late March, Twitter was filled with stories of "my cousin's mother's former roommate was on death's door and took this therapy and miraculously recovered". But such stories, even assuming they are true, mean nothing. With COVID-19, we know that seriously ill people reach an inflection point where they either recover or die. If they died while taking the HCQ regimen, we don't hear from them because...they died. And if they recover without taking it, we don't hear from them because...they didn't take it. Our simian brains have evolved to think that correlation is causation. But it isn't. If I sacrificed a goat in every COVID-19 patient's room, some of them would recover just by chance. That doesn't mean we should start a massive holocaust of caprines.

However, even putting aside anecdotes, there were good reasons to believe the HCQ regimen might work. And given the seriousness of this disease and the desperation of those trying to save lives, it's understandable that doctors began using it for critically ill patients and scientists began researching its efficacy.

Why Trump became fixated on it is equally understandable. Trump has been looking for a quick fix to this crisis since Day One. Denial failed. Closing off (some) travel to China failed. A vaccine is months if not years away. So HCQ offered him what he wanted -- a way to fix this problem without the hard work, tough choices and sacrifice of stay-at-home orders, masks, isolation and quarantine. So eager were they to adopt the quick fix, the Administration made plans to distribute millions of doses of this unproven drug in lieu of taking more concrete steps to address the crisis.[efn_note]Although the claim that Trump stands to profit off HCQ sales does not appear to hold much water.[/efn_note]

This is also why certain fringe corners of the internet became fixated on it. There has arisen a subset of the COVID Truthers that I'm calling HCQ Truthers: people who believe that HCQ isn't just something that may save some lives but is, in fact, a miracle cure that it's only being held back so that...well, take your pick. So that Democrats can wreck the economy. So that Bill Gates can inject us with tracking devices. So that we can clear off the Social Security rolls. And this isn't just a US phenomenon nor is it all about Trump. Overseas friends tell me that COVID trutherism in general and HCQ trutherism in particular have arisen all over the Western World.

It's no accident that the HCQ Truthers seem to share a great deal of headspace with the anti-Vaxxers. It fills the same needs

In both cases, the idea was started by flawed studies. The initial studies out of China and France that indicated HCQ worked were heavily criticized for methodological errors (although note that neither claimed it was a miracle cure). Since then, larger studies have shown no effect.

HCQ trutherism offers an explanation for tragedy beyond the random cruelty of nature. Just as anti-vaxxers don't want to believe that sometimes autism just happens, HCQ Truthers don't want to believe that sometimes nature just releases awful epidemics on us. It's more comforting, in some ways, to think that bad happenings are all part of a plan by shadowy forces.

There is, however, another crazy side that doesn't get as much attention because their crazy is a bit more subtle. These are the people who have decided that, since Trump is touting the HCQ treatment, it must not work. It can not work. It can not be allowed to work. There is an undisguised glee when studies show that HCQ does not work and a willingness to blame HCQ shortages on Trump and only Trump.[efn_note]Not to mention the odd fish tank cleaner poisoning that has nothing to do with him.[/efn_note]

In between the two camps are everyone else: scientists, doctors and ordinary folk who just want to know whether this thing works or not, politics and conspiracy theories be damned. Well, last week, we got a big indication that it does not. A massive study out of the Lancet concluded that the HCQ regimen has no measurable positive effect. In fact, death rates were higher for those who took the regimen, likely due to heart arrhythmias induced by the drug.

So is the debate over? Can we move on from HCQ? Not quite.

First of all, the study is a retrospective study, looking backward at nearly 100,000 cases over the last four months. That's a massive sample that allows one to correct for potential confounding factors. But it's not a double-blind trial, so there may be certain biases that can not be avoided. In response to the publication, a group doing a controlled study unblinded some of their data (that is, they let an independent group look up who was getting the actual HCQ and who was getting a placebo). It did not show enough of a safety concern to warrant ending the study.

It's also worth noting that because this is an unproven therapy, it is usually being used on only the sickest patients (the odd President of the United States aside). It's possible earlier use of the drug, when the body is not already at war with itself, could help.

With those caveats in mind, however, this study at least makes it clear that HCQ is not the miracle cure some fringe corners of the internet are pretending it is. And it should make doctors hesitant in giving to people who already have heart issues.

As you can imagine, this has only fed the twin camps of derangement. The truther arguments tend to fall into the usual holes that truther theories do:

"How can this be a four-month study when we only learned about COVID in January!" The HCQ protocol started being used almost immediately because of previous research on coronaviruses.

"How come all of the sudden this safe medicine that people use all the time is dangerous?!" The side effects of HCQ have been well known for years and have always required consideration and management. They may be showing up more strongly here because it is being given to patients whose bodies are already under extreme stress. Also, azithromycin may amplify some of those side effects.

"They just hate Trump." Not everything is about Donald Trump. If it turned out that kissing Donald Trump's giant orange backside cured COVID, scientists would be the first ones telling people to line up and use chapstick.

The other camp's response has ranged from undisguised glee -- that is, joy at the idea that we won't be saving lives cheaply -- to bizarre claims that Trump should be charged with crimes for touting this unproven therapy.

(A perfect illustration of the dementia: former FDA Head Scott Gottlieb -- who has been a Godsend for objective analysis during the pandemic -- tweeted out the results of the RECOVERY unblinding yesterday morning and noted that it showed no increased safety risk. He was immediately dogpiled by one side insisting he was trying to conceal the miracle cure of HCQ and the other insisting he is a Trumpist doing the Orange Man's dirty work.)

In the end, the lunatics do not matter. Whether HCQ works or not, whether it is used or not, will be mostly determined by doctors and will mostly be based on the evidence we have in front of us. If HCQ fails -- and it's not looking good -- my only response will be massive disappointment. Had HCQ worked, it would have been a gift from the heavens. It is a well-known, well-studied drug that can be manufactured cheaply in bulk. Had it worked, we could have saved thousands of lives, prevented hundreds of thousands of long-term injuries and saved trillions of dollars. That it doesn't appear to work -- certainly not miraculously -- is not entirely unexpected but is also a tragedy.

{C1} The Christian Science Monitor looks at 1918 and how sports handled that pandemic, and the role it played in giving rise to college football.

"That's really what started the big boom of college football in the 1920s," said Jeremy Swick, historian at the College Football Hall of Fame. "People were ready. They were back from war. They wanted to play football again. There weren't as many restrictions about going out. You could enroll back in school pretty easily. You see a great level of talent come back into the atmosphere. There's new money. It started to get to the roar of the Roaring '20s and that's when you see the stadiums arm race. Who can build the biggest and baddest stadium?"

{C2} During times of rapid change, social science is supposed to be able to help lead the way or at least decipher what is going on. Or maybe not...

But while Willer, Van Bavel, and their colleagues were putting together their paper, another team of researchers put together their own, entirely opposite, call to arms: a plea, in the face of an avalanche of behavioral science research on COVID-19, for psychology researchers to have some humility. This paper—currently published online in draft format and seeding avid debates on social media—argues that much of psychological research is nowhere near the point of being ready to help in a crisis. Instead, it sketches out an “evidence readiness” framework to help people determine when the field will be.

{C3} There is a related story about AI - which is predisposed towards tracking slow change over time - is having trouble keeping up.

{C4} The Covid-19 does not bode well for higher education is not news. They may have a lot of difficulty opening up (and maybe shouldn't). An added wrinkle is kids taking a gap year, which is potentially a problem because those most able to pay may be least likely to attend.

{C5} People who can see the faults with abstinence only education fail to see how that logic (We shouldn't give guidance to people doing things we would rather they not do in the first place). Emily Oster argues that the extreme message of public health advocates to Just Stay Home is counterproductive.

When people are advised that one very difficult behavior is safe, and (implicitly or not) that everything else is risky, they may crack under the pressure, or throw up their hands. That is, if people think all activities (other than staying home) are equally risky, they figure they might as well do those that are more fun. If taking a walk at a six-foot distance from a friend puts me at very high risk, why not just have that friend and a bunch of others over for a barbecue? It’s more fun. This is an exaggeration, of course, but different activities carry very different risks, and conscientious civic leaders should actively help people choose among them.

{C6} A look at what canceling the football season will do to the little guys - non-power schools. Ironically, they may sustain less damage due to fewer financial obligations relying on the money that won't be coming in. Be that as it may, Fordham has disestablished its baseball program.

{C7} Bans on evictions and rental spikes could have the main effect of simply pushing out small investors, rather than protecting renters. In a more good-faith economy this would be less of an issue because landlords would work with tenants. Which some are, though I don't have too much faith about it being widespread.

{C8} Three cheers for Nick Saban. Football coaches are cultural leaders of a sort. One is about to become a senator in Alabama, even. What they do matters.

The American college experience for better or for worse revolves around the residency factor. We have turned college into a relatively safe place for young adults to the test the limits of freedom without suffering too many consequences. Better to miss a day of classes because you drank too much than to miss a day of an apprenticeship or job and get fired. College was cut short this semester because of COVID and colleges are freaking out about whether they can open up dorms in the fall. The dorms are big money makers and it is hard to justify huge tuition bucks for zoom lectures even for elite universities. Maybe especially for them. California State University announced that Fall 2020 is going to be largely online. My undergrad alma mater sent out an e-mail blast announcing their plan to reopen in the fall with "mostly" in person classes. The President admitted that the plan was a work in progress but it strikes me as a combination of common sense and extreme wishful thinking. The plan may include:

1. Staggered drop-off days to limit density as we return.

This sounds reasonable but only in a temporary way because eventually everyone will be back on campus, living in dorm rooms together, needing to use communal bathrooms and showers.

2. Students would be tested for COVID-19 on campus at least twice in the first 14 days.

There is nothing wrong with this as long as the testing is available. Our capacity for testing so far in this country has not been great.

3. Anyone experiencing symptoms would be tested immediately. Students who test positive would be cared for in a separate dormitory area where food would be brought to the room and where the student could still access classes remotely.

Nothing wrong here. Outbreaks of certain diseases are not unknown in the college setting. During my senior year, there was an outbreak of a rather nasty strain of gastroenteritis. Other universities have experienced meningitis outbreaks.

4. All students would take their temperature and report symptoms daily.

This one is also reasonable but is going to involve spying on students and coming up with a punishment mechanism. How will they make sure students are not lying?

5. We would also require that socializing be kept to a minimum in the beginning, with proper PPE (masks) and social distancing. As time went on, we would seek to open up more, and students could socialize and eat together in small groups.

I have no idea how they tend for this to happen and it sets of all my lawyer bells for carefully crafted language that attempts to answer a concern or question but also admits "we got nothing." Maybe today's students are more somber and sincere but you are going to have around 500 eighteen year olds who are away from their parents for the first time and another 1500 nineteen to twenty-one year olds who had their semester rudely interrupted and might now be reunited with boyfriends and girlfriends. Are they going to assign eating times for the dining hall and put up solo eating cubicles that get wiped down and disinfected after each use? Assign times to use laundry facilities in each dorm? Cancel the clubs? Cancel performances by the theatre, dance, and music departments?

I am sympathetic to my alma I love it but and realize that a lot of colleges and universities would take a real hit financially without residency. This includes universities with reasonable to very large endowments. Only the ones with hedge fund size endowments would not suffer but the last part of the plain sounds not fully thought out yet even if my college's current President admitted: "Life on campus will not look the same as it did pre-pandemic" The only way i see number 5 working is if requiring is read as "requiring."

Seems that the theory that Covid-19 can be spread by asymptomatic people has very shaky evidence in support of it. Turns out the case this assumption was made from was based on a single woman who infected 4 others. Researchers talked to the 4 patients, and they all said the patient 0 did not appear ill, but they could not speak to patient 0 at the time.

So they finally got to talk to her, and she said she was feeling ill, but powered through with the aid of modern pharmaceuticals.

Ten Second News

Today we couldn’t be happier to announce that Vox Media and New York Media are merging to create the leading independent modern media company. Our combined business will be called Vox Media and will serve hundreds of millions of audience members wherever they prefer to enjoy our work.

In a nation in turmoil, it's nice to have even a small bit of good news:

Representative Steve King of Iowa, the nine-term Republican with a history of racist comments who only recently became a party pariah, lost his bid for renomination early Wednesday, one of the biggest defeats of the 2020 primary season in any state.

In a five-way primary, Mr. King was defeated by Randy Feenstra, a state senator, who had the backing of mainstream state and national Republicans who found Mr. King an embarrassment and, crucially, a threat to a safe Republican seat if he were on the ballot in November.

The defeat was most likely the final political blow to one of the nation’s most divisive elected officials, whose insults of undocumented immigrants foretold the messaging of President Trump, and whose flirtations with extremism led him far from rural Iowa, to meetings with anti-Muslim crusaders in Europe and an endorsement of a Toronto mayoral candidate with neo-Nazi ties.

King, you may remember, was stripped of his committee assignments last year when he defended white supremacism. Two years ago, he almost lost his Congressional seat in the general. That is, a seat that Republicans have held since 1986, usually win by double digits and a district Trump carried by a whopping 27 points almost came within a point or two of voting in a Democrat. That's how repulsive King had gotten.

Good riddance to bad rubbish. Enjoy retirement, Congressman. Oops. Sorry. In January, it will be former Congressman.

Comment →

From the Daily Mail: Deadliest city in America plans to disband its entire police force and fire 270 cops to deal with budget crunch

The deadliest city in America is disbanding its entire police force and firing 270 cops in an effort to deal with a massive budget crunch.

...

The police union says the force, which will not be unionized, is simply a union-busting move that is meant to get out of contracts with current employees. Any city officers that are hired to the county force will lose the benefits they had on the unionized force.

Oak Park police say they are investigating “suspicious circumstances” after two attorneys — including one who served as a hearing officer in several high-profile Chicago police misconduct cases — were found dead in their home in the western suburb Monday night.

Officers were called about 7:30 p.m. for a well-being check inside a home in the 500 block of Fair Oaks Avenue, near Chicago Avenue, and found the couple dead inside, Oak Park spokesman David Powers said in an emailed statement. Authorities later identified them as Thomas E. Johnson, 69, and Leslie Ann Jones, 67, husband and wife attorneys who worked in Chicago.

The preliminary report from an independent autopsy ordered by George Floyd's family says the 46 year old man's death was "caused by asphyxia due to neck and back compression that led to a lack of blood flow to the brain".

The independent examiners found that weight on the back, handcuffs and positioning were contributory factors because they impaired the ability of Floyd's diaphragm to function, according to the report.

Dr. Michael Baden and the University of Michigan Medical School's director of autopsy and forensic services, Dr. Allecia Wilson, handled the examination, according to family attorney Ben Crump.

Baden, who was New York's medical examiner in 1978 and 1979, had previously performed independent autopsies on Eric Garner, who was killed by a police officer in Staten Island, New York, in 2014 and Michael Brown, who was shot by officers in Ferguson, Missouri, that same year.

Featured Comment

Oddly, the video was dropped by an attorney friend the men, because he thought it would exonerate them. He assumed when people saw Aubrey turn and try to defend himself, everyone would see what they did: a dangerous animal needing to be put down.